ABECHE, Chad, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The scandal over a French group suspected of trying to smuggle African children to Europe from Chad may harm the image of foreign aid workers seeking to help refugees fleeing violence, U.N. officials said on Monday.

Chadian police last week arrested 17 Europeans, including nine French and seven Spaniards, whom President Idriss Deby has accused of trying to illegally fly 103 children, aged 3 to 10 and believed to be from Sudan and Chad, out of the country.

Those arrested included members of French charity "Zoe's Ark", which promoted their operation as offering a better life to orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, many of whose people have fled over the border to camps in Chad.

The group's lawyer said on Monday they were trying to help the children, not abduct them, and that they acted legally.

But Chad's president called the operation "pure and simple abduction" and demanded tough penalties for those responsible. He suggested the children could have ended up being sold to a paedophile ring or used to supply human organs.

"These people ... treat us like animals. So this is the image of the saviour Europe, which gives lessons to our countries. This is the image of Europe which helps Africans," Chad's official presidency Web site quoted Deby as saying.

U.N. aid officials fear this negative perception will dent the reputation of other foreign humanitarian organisations in Chad trying to help more than 400,000 Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadian civilians who have fled from violence.

"Chadian people may feel anger -- it's difficult for them to distinguish between one organisation or another -- and this anger may be directed towards the humanitarian community," Serge Male, head of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in Chad, said.

"We will have to rebuild the confidence with the local population," he told Reuters by telephone.
U.N. officials say that while the Zoe's Ark group may have had good intentions -- a Chad government inquiry is under way -- they did not appear to have any government authorisation to take the children out of the country.

"They committed a massive error. It was very unprofessional," said Jean-Francois Basse, senior protection officer in Chad for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.

Relief workers fear the row will damage the Chadian government's attitude towards foreign humanitarian operations on its soil, at a time when the European Union is also preparing to deploy a military peacekeeping force in eastern Chad.

Officials in Chad are trying to determine the identity of the children, none of whom have any identification papers.

Many of the children appear to be Chadian, rather than Sudanese orphans, the BBC reported citing the president of the French national committee for UN children's agency UNICEF.

The children additionally appeared to be in good health, despite the official designation of the aid operation as being on medical grounds. UNICEF officials said bandages had been put on the children to make them appear as war victims.

The children are currently in an orphanage in Abeche where they are being cared for by local aid workers and UNICEF staff.

'Many of the children cry at night and call for their parents,' one UNICEF aid worker told the BBC on Monday.

'Our impression is that the majority aren't orphans, but at this stage it's just an impression,' said Jacques Hintzy, head of UNICEF France.